A scanning probe microscopy device serves to map nanostructures on a sample surface of a sample. Such a device may comprises a probe for scanning the surface of an object, and one or more motion actuators for enabling motion of the probe relative to the sample In one embodiment a probes comprises a probing tip mounted on a cantilever arranged for bringing the probing tip in contact with the sampling surface for enabling the scanning, and a Z-position detector for determining a position of the probing tip along a Z-direction when the probing tip is in contact with the sample surface (herein the Z-direction is a direction transverse to the sample surface).
Scanning probe microscopy (SPM) devices, such as atomic force microscopy (AFM) devices as described above are for example applied in the semiconductor industry for scanning of semiconductor topologies on a surface. Other uses of this technology are found in biomedical industry, nanotechnology, and scientific applications. In particular, measurements with a microscopic probe may be used for critical defect metrology (CD-metrology), particle scanning, stress- and roughness measurements. AFM microscopy allows visualization of surfaces at very high accuracy, enabling visualization of surface elements at sub-nanometer resolution.
The very high resolution and accuracy of a microscopic probe however comes at the cost of performance in terms of throughput. Throughput scales with the ratio of object area and the area of the smallest details that can be resolved with the microscopic probe. For object of macroscopic dimensions this results in significant processing time, which may be unrealistic or at least cumbersome for practical use and altogether incompatible with on line use in manufacturing processes.
Further development of the SPM technology has provided systems comprising a probe head upon which a plurality of probes are mounted side by side. Each probe comprises a cantilever and a probe tip, and each probe tips position in z-direction is measurable independently. This allows for scanning of a plurality of ‘scanning lanes’ at one pass of the scanning head, and as will be appreciated, the speed at which a single section may be scanned is multiplied by the number of probe tips present on the head.
WO2007121208 discloses scanning probe lithography, wherein a substrate is moved underneath a transparent reference flat with a grating pattern. The substrate contains a pattern that enable alignment with the grating pattern by interferometric spatial phase imaging. One or more probe tips are attached to the reference flat. Each probe tip can be moved up and down in a z-direction perpendicular to the reference flat. The z-positions that result from this movement are also measured by means of interferometric spatial phase imaging.